Dynamics of the modulation instability spectrum in optical fibers with oscillating dispersion

TL;DR

This paper presents an analytical model explaining the complex multi-peak modulation instability spectrum in dispersion oscillating optical fibers, highlighting the role of quasi-phase-matching and enabling spectrum tailoring, with validation through simulations and experiments.

Contribution

An analytical model that elucidates the modulation instability spectrum dynamics in dispersion oscillating fibers and allows for spectrum shaping.

Findings

The model accurately predicts the multi-peak spectrum formation.

Quasi-phase-matching explains the growth of spectral components.

Experimental results confirm theoretical predictions.

Abstract

A simple analytical model is developed to analyze and explain the complex dynamics of the multi-peak modulation instability spectrum observed in dispersion oscillating optical fibers [M. Droques et al., 37, 4832-4834 Opt. Lett., (2012)]. We provide a simple expression for the local parametric gain which shows that each of the multiple spectral components grows thanks to a quasi-phase-matching mechanism due to the periodicity of the waveguide parameters, in good agreement with numerical simulations and experiments. This simplified model is also successfully used to tailor the multi-peak modulation instability spectrum shape. These theoretical predictions are confirmed by experiments.